PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND SIMULATION OF POLYMER BALL BEARING IN ELECTRIC MOTOR & CIRCULATING PUMP APPLICATION

Abstract

The use of polymer bearing can improve performance as polymer material is self
lubricating material. Nowadays the use of polymer bearing is increasing in place of metal ball
bearing. The usage of polymers in bearings has been increasing in recent years due to certain
valuable tribological properties, including their ability to self-lubricate and their resistance to
corrosion. These advantages encourage manufacturers to use polymer bearings in corrosive and
lubricant-free work environments as well as applications in which weight reduction is desirable. Ball
bearing used to mount the shaft of circulating pump used in agriculture application has to work in
corrosive environment and having continuous contact with water, due to which lubrication loss occur
which will cause bearing failure. Ball bearing used to support shaft of industrial DC motor,
according to application has to work in corrosive environments and sometimes lubrication is not
possible which will cause bearing failure. Into this dissertation an analysis has been done to improve
the performance of ball bearing used in electric motor and circulating pump application by using
polymer ball bearing. This will provide corrosion free, less noisy and lubrication free performance.
To compare the performance, analytical calculation and dynamic analysis of metal ball bearing and
polymer ball bearing will be done and results in form of lifecycle and stresses formed on each
element on bearing are compared for both materials.